Sleeping Beauty
by Minerva Solo
Summary: Schuldig has trouble waking up in the mornings, and he and Brad develop a 'ritual'. Random Short. NB: not a BradSchu


Sleeping Beauty

A/N: _Very_ random little short. There's yaoi, but not necessarily any shounen ai. Basically, this isn't a BradSchu. They could both be straight as William Tell's arrows for all the relevance their sexual orientation has on this fic. But still, yaoi.

Disclaimer: Neither Brad nor Schu are mine. The title belongs either to the Brother's Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson. ^_^ Just to be thorough. 

Brad leant on the doorframe as the early morning light shafted greyly though the grimy window. Schuldig was asleep, nestled amongst the black satin sheets he'd insisted on. He was pale against them, looking lost in the huge bed. Brad disapproved of the sheets, he thought they looked like a hooker's bed and gave the room a seedy air, but then, Schuldig didn't need black satin bedclothes to make the room look seedy. His mere presence was enough.

Schuldig twitched and trembled in his sleep, mouth half forming thousands of incomplete words a second as the world thought. Somewhere, under the weight of that world, was Schuldig's own mind, and it was Brad's job to bring it to the surface.

They'd discussed it, once, on a very long flight. Schuldig had absolutely refused to sleep, and Brad had felt that it was prudent, considering their waking ritual. Schuldig had drunk coffee after coffee until he was twitching worse than he did in his sleep, and to keep him occupied, Brad had asked, quite innocently (if such a thing is possible for an assassin), "what actually happens?"

Watching Schuldig sleep now, Brad could see why Schuldig had reached the conclusion he had. His own experience backed it up, to an extent. When Brad slept, his shields were down. Visions poured into his skull, trapping him in a distorted dream cycle until he woke, isolating him in his own head. But Schuldig was a telepath. When his shields collapsed, he was anything but isolated.

Brad wondered if there was anyway of measuring Schuldig's 'range' while asleep. It certainly covered all of Tokyo, and quite possibly further. A few times Brad had caught some clicks in Schuldig's constant mumblings that were remarkably reminiscent of a certain African language. Once, Schuldig had made noises he should never have been able to make, in a language that Brad as certain was spoken nowhere on earth.

Schuldig had told him, on that long ago flight, that he never remembered any of it. It was a sort of repression, a natural defence mechanism. If he could, he'd go insane. So all he knew about his nightly deluge was what Brad observed.

Somewhere in that mess of minds was the one known as Schuldig. And he was truly lost. It was Brad's job to find him and bring him to consciousness.

It is odd, Brad mused, how life obeys a sort of instinctual version of Newton's third law. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and both are generally the result of the same thing. 'Flight or fight', the response to stress, seem to be utterly opposite but come from the same source. And so the ways of separating Schuldig from the general maelstrom seem to be the antonym of each other, on first sight. Pain, or pleasure.

For Schuldig to regain control, whilst awake, should he start to lose himself in Tokyo's throngs, he would hurt whomever he was most lost in. Pain only flared in one mind, and on some level his brain ran a few checks and declared that it wasn't him. Schuldig would snap back to himself.

Then there was pleasure. As long as only one mind was flooded with endorphins, Schuldig's brain would run the same checks and declare that it was Schuldig, so carry on. Sometimes Brad wondered what Schuldig had done before they met, when there had been no one to wake him. He supposed the young man had always been punched into consciousness or similar.

When they met, Schuldig was in a 'coma'. Brad was young and impressionable. He'd also mistaken Schuldig for a girl, with all that long hair and sunken stomach from lack of food giving him the appearance of a raised chest. To get to the point, he'd kissed him. Schuldig, not then a teenager, had awoken and stared at him. There'd been a bemused frown, then "What do you mean, _princess_?"

Brad gazed down at the spasming body, a wry grin touching his features as he remembered those more innocent days. He sat down next to Schuldig, one hand brushing the strands of orange hair, glowing against the black. It was different now. He was older, and he was aware that things had changed. Schuldig wouldn't wake at a simple kiss now. That would inspire pleasure on both halves, now that Brad was a little more accepting and a little less homophobic.

Brad's had wrapped itself around Schuldig's penis, stroking and coaxing it into an erection. This was the 'daily grind', something that Schuldig must enjoy and Brad found, quite frankly, dull. Schuldig's ramblings became more coherent as his mind began to refocus on the area of his body, and Brad heard his own thoughts muttered briefly. With a few final, firm strokes, Schuldig came to, and came too.

No, I didn't write that for the last line, and yes, I am proud of it. Pun! 


End file.
